The Therapeutist by Rene Magritte (1937) Willed ignorance - against knowledge theories of suffering This essay continues our series on the philosophical problem posed by the emergence of self-destructive behaviors in human beings. There seems to be two moments within the event of understanding. In the first moment, the knower apprehends the thing being known. However, this moment is followed by a second in Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
How are self-destructive behaviors even possible? How can a creature knowingly choose to wound itself? And, perhaps even more troubling, to find such enjoyment in their own demise? Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
"The Crucifixion" by Edvard Munch (1900) The contingent third term, or, Žižek against Milbank on paradox In The Monstrosity of Christ, Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank debate the path forward after the collapse of secular reason. As they try to mark out a post-secular way, they characterize the difference between their positions as the difference between dialectic and paradox. Žižek and Milbank on Mediation Zizek, ever Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
I'm offering a free PDF about Heidegger and the Kyoto School If we can think about the religious journey as a diagnosis and prescription for the human condition, we can begin to see what hangs on how we answer the question of what sort of problem a human being presents to themselves and their world. We can't have a Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
Chitoge with Shaft's signature throwing the head back The Myth of Absolute Origin, or, watching Nisekoi with Nietzsche I recently wrote a piece about the psychological trap which the childhood friend trope in anime represents for the protagonist (and the viewer!), but I want to keep exploring that line of inquiry by examining two other tropes which are intimately intertwined with the trope of the childhood friend -- Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
Photo by Alexander Andrews / Unsplash How object permanence underlies our experience of self What do we make of the human love affair with the visual realm? As a species, we suffer from a fixation — a veritable obsession with — the world of images. Jean Piaget famously postulated that, early on in their life, a child develops what is called 'object permanence.' Object Matthew Stanley • Philosophy
